Voldemort Triumphant?
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: Parody. Voldemort travels back in time to attempt to 'fix what went wrong' and to ensure his final victory. Warning! Evil!Voldemort, prepared to use killing curses, corrupt the innocent, and do other unpleasant things as necessary. Minor spelling correction, November 2014.


(minor spelling correction, November 2014)

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Further Disclaimer:

The following tale is a parody, which vaguely assumes original canon plays out, but then Voldemort travels back in time and starts messing with things, at which point events start playing out differently and characters change.

Warning! This is _Voldemort_ messing around with things here, and he's a dark lord. People will be dispatched with killing curses, relative innocents corrupted, and other unpleasant things happen.

* * *

><p>The Dark Lord felt himself spiralling crazily away. The killing curse he had sent at the Potter brat had rebounded and killed him, or at least it <em>should<em> have hit and killed him. Okay, actually it _had_ technically killed him, since it had turned out that somehow he had no horcruxes left, but the Dark Lord had had one last insane piece of twisted genius left to employ.

He wasn't sure if it was time-travel in the same universe, or travel to a practically identical but alternate universe at an earlier period, but the point was that he got to go back in time and correct the mistakes which had led to his downfall.

Somewhere, quite possibly, the Potter brat was enjoying his victory. If this was travel to an alternate universe, at least one Potter would, unfortunately, continue to enjoy it…

But right now Voldemort was about to go back and make sure that his enemies were going to get their come-uppance in at least one version of reality.

Oh yes, and he would displace or kill the pre-existing or identical version of himself in the doing so, but omelettes and eggs, and any universe was only big enough, let's face it, for just the _one_ Dark Lord.

* * *

><p>The Dark Lord was obliged to resort to consulting Muggle newspapers to discover the date he had arrived at, and discovered that it was 1975 and the morning of the first of January. His precise memory of where he was and what he had been involved in during the minutiae of the war was unfortunately inexact, which caused some confusion to his Death Eaters for a month or two, and offered his enemies a brief glimmer of hope, before he was able to get back into his stride and was fully the master of the situation.<p>

It felt good to have the old yew and phoenix feather wand back. Obviously he would have liked the Elder Wand, but at this point in his career Dumbledore was still a powerful wizard, his reflexes and mind still sharp, and the Dark Lord didn't like to risk a needless direct confrontation with him.

There were certain things which _did_ require his attention, however, and indeed his presence in Hogsmeade. After Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter had been one of the banes of his existence, and it was necessary to take steps to deal with _that_ problem, firstly to attempt to prevent him from ever existing, but secondly to ensure that if there was some particular immutable law of fate in operation here that certain people or things _would_ come into existence at least this early on the timeline in this reality, that the potential threats they offered would be minimal.

Voldemort had to slacken off on the attacks he personally made on muggles in order to go after his prevent-Harry-Potter-from-ever-existing strategy.

He also, upon consideration, had to give very specific orders to one particular trainee Death Eater once he came into his sphere of influence.

Voldemort had discovered, shortly before his own final demise in the original timeline, that Severus Snape had betrayed him for years because he had pronounced a death-sentence on Lily, but the man – besides bringing him news of the prophecy in the first place – let's face it, had had the potential to become a very useful lieutenant, which was why he had ever bothered to recruit him in the first place. Heck, the fact he'd succeeded in betraying Voldemort successfully for so long, the Potter brat only revealing it after the Dark Lord had already killed Snape for an altogether unrelated reason said just how high quality a wizard Snape had actually been.

Voldemort, therefore, took to giving this version of Snape very specific spying missions, once he had recruited him, and ensured that he himself took no actions that might sour Severus against him. Yes, he could just wait for Snape to bring him news of the prophecy, and then kill him, but that would feel like Dumbledore had won somehow, in that Voldemort would be destroying a potentially valuable resource out of fear that Dumbledore might somehow turn him and throw him back at him.

Eventually, Snape brought him word of the prophecy, and having been cautioned this time to take steps against being detected whilst snooping, he brought him the entire wording of the version of the prophecy in this reality. The Dark Lord had no guarantee of course that it was the same as the prophecy from the original timeline – he had never heard the latter in its entirety – but at least he knew this time where he stood. At that point he took steps against those who had gone on to become Potter's friends in the original timeline. Voldemort tracked down the Granger girl's parents and attacked them in a very _special_ manner, just in case events should get remotely back on track.

The news that in the middle of July, 1980, James Potter's wife, Helena, had given birth to a daughter named Harriet Jasmine Potter filled the Dark Lord with glee.

The Dark Lord waited until the end of July, confirmed that the only male heir known who fit the prophecy specifications was Neville Longbottom, then set out to hunt Longbottom down and exterminate him. Lily Evans wasn't going to be interfering with _this_ kill.

* * *

><p>Oddly, it proved unexpectedly difficult for Voldemort to hunt down and kill Neville Longbottom. Despite the fact that the Dark Lord had taken steps to ensure Severus Snape's loyalties, it was as if Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix were getting information from inside the Death Eaters anyway.<p>

It didn't matter. Voldemort had a secret agent in place – of whom only he knew. He had personally approached Wormtail in this reality, and leant on him several years earlier, to set up this anti-Longbottom endgame. Knowing Wormtail fell apart very easily under pressure had made things easy, and Voldemort had him in place in the Order of the Phoenix as an unmarked sleeper agent with instructions to make himself amenable until the Longbottoms should have need of a keeper 'nobody could ever suspect' for a fidelius charm…

Finally, as October of 1981 drew to a close everything fell into place. The symmetry was almost breathtaking, only in that this time the Longbottoms had been betrayed by Wormtail, almost to the very same minute as the Potter family had been in another time and place.

Voldemort looked forward to this being over. Once Neville Longbottom was dead, Voldemort could tidy up the contingency plans which he had, perforce, put in place.

* * *

><p>As November of 1981 arrived Voldemort, now a disembodied spirit fleeing in the general direction of Albania in an all-too-familiar fashion, reflected on the fact that if he did this <em>again<em>then irrespective of who the parents were he was going to have to simply leave them helpless whilst he dealt with the main business, and maybe kill them _after_ the infant.

Oh well, here very likely came yet another decade in the wilderness until this timeline's version of Quirrell arrived.

* * *

><p>Having passed a miserable ten years in the wilderness with nothing but snakes, rodents and occasional annoyingly possession-proof Japanese tourists for company (he spent much of what time he had pondering this latter matter, and whether fate was in some way taunting him?), Voldemort returned to London with Quirrell. He had hoped a different opportunity might present itself, but since he hadn't counted on the killing curse rebounding again like that, his preparations to be exiled had been minimal.<p>

Upon reflection, that had been an error too.

In Diagon Alley, with Quirrell, Voldemort was careful to discover who bought the only other wand with a core from Dumbledore's phoenix to exist (not being at all surprised to learn that it was the orphaned Longbottom) and to establish the theory of twin cores was likely to function too. He would need to take steps to deal with that if he ever had to fight Neville Longbottom.

And then it was off to Hogwarts.

Quirrell travelled on the train with the pupils, taking care to sound out Longbottom. It seemed that this Longbottom, brought up by his grandmother as 'The Boy Who Lived' was much different from the Neville Longbottom of Voldemort's original timeline. He would have to be careful.

At Hogwarts the Dark Lord ran into a further problem. Horace Slughorn was the potions master – Dumbledore had never trusted Snape enough to employ him, since even though Snape had never had anything proven against him, he was still a suspected Death Eater. Consequently Dumbledore had somehow induced Slughorn to stay on, past the end of the war, and Slughorn would not be a natural ally of the Dark Lord. Furthermore he was probably going to be more concerned about threats to student safety than the original Snape had been, meaning none of Quirrell's actions could be too overt, and Slughorn didn't make a terribly convincing alternate potential thief of the stone to distract attention.

Hermione Granger ended up being sorted into Slytherin – okay, perhaps that was to be expected given some of the things he had set in motion earlier – and it was the annoying Harriet Jasmine Potter who ended up in Gryffindor alongside Ron Weasley in Mr. Longbottom's circle of friends.

And there were several flame-haired Gaunt children at Hogwarts as well, just to complicate matters further. They had never existed or had comparable counterparts at all that the Dark Lord could think of on the original timeline, so were almost impossible to factor into calculations.

In the end, alone in front of the Mirror with Longbottom, at the conclusion of a trying school year, with aurors on the way, and the Philosopher's Stone on this timeline turning out to be a fake, Voldemort simply had Quirrell bring the ceiling of the chamber down on both himself and Longbottom, not bothering to attempt to work magic on or to lay hands on Longbottom. Sadly, although Quirrell who had outlived his usefulness perished amidst the rubble, Longbottom somehow survived.

Oh yes, a further mental note: _Next_ time he either personally applied for or possessed someone who had the Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts post, the Dark Lord should make sure he took his 'limited tenure' jinx off it. Upon reflection, that probably hadn't helped his situation…

* * *

><p>It wasn't until 1995 and the tri-wizard tournament that Voldemort was finally able to regain physical form, in a graveyard in Little Hangleton. There, he found that the tri-wizard school champions who had made it through the maze were Angela Michelle Gaunt of Hufflepuff, and Neville Longbottom. Although Wormtail had easily captured Longbottom, and used him to help resurrect Voldemort, the Hufflepuff girl had proven elusive, and evaded capture amongst the tombstones and crypts. Voldemort melted the tri-wizard cup to slag so it couldn't be used as a portkey to escape, then summoned his Death Eaters, intending to finish at least Longbottom (the main threat) off. Just to make sure, this time, he borrowed Lucius' wand. His first shot destroyed Neville Longbottom's phoenix feather core wand to the Dark Lord's great glee. The second shot, a killing curse, unfortunately gave the Dark Lord the same annoying headache and fugue moment that his attempt to kill the original Harry Potter in the Forbidden Forest had done. Whilst the Dark Lord was so disadvantaged, Angela, like some earthbound angel, had dropped out of the sky where she had been flying under cover of a disillusionment charm, grabbed Longbottom and apparated the heck out of the graveyard. The next Voldemort heard of them, they were safe back at Hogwarts. Damnation. Of course, she was over seventeen and didn't need a portkey to get around. She hadn't proven anywhere near as ineffectual as Cedric Diggory had been on the original timeline.<p>

Oh well. Time to assess the damage.

Voldemort was in a better position, on most counts that he could see, than at the equivalent point on the original timeline. Longbottom had escaped and his link with Longbottom had for whatever reason been broken in the process, but Voldemort had destroyed Longbottom's phoenix core wand, Harry Potter was a simpering pureblood girl Harriet Potter whose role was basically restricted to being Neville's girlfriend, and Voldemort knew the entirety of the prophecy. And _if_ the Dumbledore of this reality sent Neville after horcruxes… well: Voldemort had some _very_ unpleasant surprises lined up if they _did_ discover where all the pieces of Voldemort's soul were.

Not least that the diary, despite appearances, had not ended its purpose futilely when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened (Caecilia Honeydew Gaunt and her twin sister Quinta Venusia Gaunt had been uncommonly fast to act there, hunting diary, basilisk and girl to the Chamber of Secrets by Christmas whilst Neville, Ron, and Harriet had still been floundering), but had successfully corrupted Ginevra Weasley into an upcoming secret student of the dark arts, and Voldemort had been careful to make his _final_ horcrux this time before going off to slay Longbottom in 1981. Nagini was just a loyal pet snake this time around, although in the interests of misdirecting certain meddling Gryffindors he had applied all sorts of dark magic to her and treated Nagini as one of his most prized possessions…

At this point though, given the way that the Gaunts seemed to keep tripping over his affairs, Voldemort decided a family visit to go and see dear Lily was on the cards. The fact that Angela had got the drop on him in Little Hangleton by flying without the aid of a broom had simultaneously impressed and annoyed him.

* * *

><p>The situation regarding Lily Gaunt was a delicate one. Voldemort's position had been sufficiently strong in 1981 that after slaying Neville Longbottom he could have disposed of Lily and her entire family and taken the hit of losing Severus Snape too as a consequence. Of course, the whole kill-Neville-Longbottom thing hadn't quite worked out the way desired, and at this point more than a dozen years later Voldemort couldn't afford to lose Snape. Snape had spent over a decade collecting highly useful information for his master – but Snape's loyalty was dependent on his ridiculous unrequited love for Lily, which meant right now Lily got a pass for a great deal of stuff. Nevertheless…<p>

She was intelligent. The moment Marvolo Gaunt arrived on her doorstep she slapped him around the face, and gave him an accusatory glare.

"As you have clearly surmised from my absence, my affiliations lie with the Death Eaters." Marvolo told her. "After the Dark Lord's fall, things were a little difficult."

"I heard from you by muggle post half a dozen times four years ago and that was _it_." her eyes were ablaze.

"The years have not been as kind to me as I would have wished for." Marvolo said. "However, I am now back, and here to inspect my family."

The Gaunt family lived above the tea-rooms which Lily ran in Hogsmeade. Several of the children were day-boarders at Hogwarts.

Lily scowled but rounded the children up, so they could 'properly meet their worthless fool of a father'.

* * *

><p>The Gaunt family scared Voldemort. The second daughter, Melissa Foxglove was in Ravenclaw and had actually found the diadem and claimed it for her own. Angela had somehow rounded up Slytherin's locket, and tended to wear it, (even though she was in Hufflepuff) and the son, Hadrian Septimus, was actually dating Hermione Granger.<p>

They apparently had an inherent natural disposition to gravitate towards vessels which held pieces of his soul. He had to wonder how long it would be before Marvolo's ring fell into their hands or Hufflepuff's cup, or before the baby of the family little Lucia Amanita struck up some sort of perverse relationship with Ginevra Weasley?

And they were _good_ at magic. The way that Angela had successfully played hide and seek with Wormtail and then rescued Neville Longbottom in the Little Hangleton graveyard (Angela muttered something about magically binding contracts for contestants to ensure one another's safety at all times during the tournament by way of explanation for _that_ particular episode) was evidence enough of that and the rest were prodigies following in their big sister's footsteps.

Oh, and all the children were Parselmouths.

He _should_ have exterminated them in 1981, and damn the consequences. There wasn't any question that he could do it now without an army of Death Eaters behind him. In his efforts to personally ensure that Lily Evans and James Potter would _never_ get together and birth Harry Potter, he had created a multi-headed monster of a family of his own, somewhat more dangerous if provoked than any combination of half a dozen dragons which he could imagine.

And now that 'Marvolo Gaunt' (disguised or not) was back, Lily intended to get her claws into him. She issued an ultimatum that a husband who was a Death Eater was fine with her, so long as he was a _loving_ husband, or at least one who paid due attention to all husbandly duties. She had a business to run, in the meantime, thank-you very much, and sniffily declined to get pro-actively involved with (or commit her children to) the forthcoming war.

The only ray of light in all of this that Voldemort could see was that Dumbledore or Neville, Harriet and Ron were going to have a devil of a time getting _any_ horcruxes off of this lot, at least as long as Lily was kept on side.

* * *

><p>Voldemort played Fudge and Umbridge like a symphony orchestra. However, whilst Ronald Weasley was all but irrelevant, Neville Longbottom, 'the boy who lived', was socially better connected than the original Harry Potter had been, as for which matter Harriet Potter (with two pureblood parents, including a still active James) was than Hermione had been. It was a desperate battle, of intrigues and political skirmishes, Voldemort assisted by some knowledge (although increasingly less useful) of what had happened in the original timeline, but hampered by the need to deal with problems before they arose such as making efforts to neutralise Scrimgeour in case Fudge should fall.<p>

Voldemort destroyed Scrimgeour in the end, and in a trap in the corridors of the ministry duelled Dumbledore and made him flee, but lost Fudge and was surprised by Dumbledore himself turning Hogwarts over to McGonagall and stepping in to assume control of the ministry.

At this point it was obvious that things had massively differed from the original timeline.

Dumbledore had assumed command of a ministry almost destroyed in terms of personnel and resources. The aurors were practically non-existent as a force, equipment and morale were low, and the ministry barely had the capacity to protect itself, let alone muggles or the wider wizard community in general, but Dumbledore's political powerbase was rock-solid and what was left of the ministry was united behind him and completely free of Voldemort's agents.

At this point, it turned out that Neville, Harriet, and Ron had been busy, and finally laid hands on Marvolo's ring and destroyed it as a horcrux. Longbottom had taken it as a trophy and wore it openly. And then Severus informed Voldemort that there appeared to be a high-ranking Death Eater traitor in Voldemort's organization, and bare minutes ahead of the Dark Lord's fury, Bellatrix escaped taking Hufflepuff's cup and several cells of Death Eaters personally loyal to her with her. Apparently Bellatrix had become jealous of the attention Voldemort gave to Lily years ago, and had gone over to Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix just to spite him. The Ministry had pretended to send her to Azkaban after the end of the first Wizarding War, but the cell had usually been empty or occupied by a transfigured pumpkin, whilst she had actually spent most of the time between the wars under the alias 'Arabella Grey' swanning around the world's top resorts and sunning herself.

In great wrath Voldemort rallied the remaining troops and marched on Hogwarts where Bellatrix and her traitors were 'hiding', and that of course was where it all ended… It had been a massive trap and Neville Longbottom, armed with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, had slain Voldemort and led the complete and final rout of the Death Eaters. It turned out that the Order of the Phoenix had known of Voldemort's fascination with artefacts and sought them out and destroyed them years ago, replacing them with clever duplicates, and having taken care to slay Nagini too, after noting all the care and attention he paid the snake, that of course was where Voldemort should have once again lost once and for all…

* * *

><p>Voldemort woke in a feather bed surrounded by the Gaunt family.<p>

Lily, the contours of the grey gown which she wore now slightly more than hinting at the child she'd conceived several months ago, was just putting some sort of bottle away. However it was that she'd just resurrected him, she'd done it a lot more nicely and efficiently than Wormtail had done in either timeline.

"Ah, there you are, dear." she said. "I've got lots of tasks around the house for you to do: shelves to put up, roof-tiles to replace and wonky tables to fix… The tea-room business is expanding too – I'm about to open my fourth shop – and since I checked your old school reports and it turns out you did quite well at arithmancy, you can take a course in book-keeping and save me the cost of hiring an accountant."

Voldemort blinked slowly, and sat up.

Hermione Granger and Ginevra Weasley were also present.

"The Order of the Phoenix thought that they had captured all your horcrux objects and after destroying them put back clever fakes to deceive you in case you checked or anyone else came looking." Angela said. "The Order of the Phoenix in fact destroyed _really_ clever fakes which mum had created and swapped in before the Order even started hunting. She found all your horcruxes years ago, shortly after your unsuccessful Longbottom hunt in '81 when she figured out for certain who you were. She left the diary with Lucius, as she figured he_ought_ to be able to protect it and didn't want to tip anyone off she knew, and moved the rest."

"We've been doing some maths though." Melissa said. "We reckon you've torn your soul so many times that you're susceptible to the combined influence of enough possessors of your soul-fragments. Imbuing Hermione Granger before she was even born as your last horcrux and giving the diary orders to transfer itself to Ginevra once she came along seemingly destroying itself in the process was a stroke of genius which _would_ have beaten the Order of the Phoenix and Neville even without our intervention, but too bad it's left you especially vulnerable to collective action from us."

"Your career as a Dark Lord is now officially over." Lily said. "We've decided it is. We don't care about all the people you've killed and the other lives you've wrecked, but you've tried to conquer this world twice now and blown it both times and we figure since you're no good at that you may as well stay around here and make yourself at least marginally useful. Plus we reckon you owe us all for not telling your family who you were in the first place and then being away from us for so long…"

And Voldemort felt a dread, unlike any he had ever felt before, entering into the tattered remains of what he still owned of his soul…

* * *

><p>Author Notes:<p>

Just a quick note to explain that it was this Voldemort's initial conclusion was that it was _Lily Evans/Potter_ specifically getting in the way of a killing curse cast by himself which messed things up, and the most reliable way he could think of to ensure she wouldn't get in the way 'the second time round' was by marrying Lily Evans himself (albeit under an alias which harked back to his own heritage). The fact that this also helped to prevent her and James getting together to procreate Harry Potter was a further factor which made it appealing to his mind. He couldn't care less about Lily being a muggle-born, in this particular context - the most important thing here is _winning_, and as a dark lord he's entitled in his own mind to occasionally be hypocritical or to have double-standards. Besides which, he did _originally_ intend to dispose of her (and possibly their children too) once it was clear that he had achieved whatever constituted victory in his mind.

At the time of writing this, I have nothing specific in mind for the full version of the prophecy on the alternate timeline. As far as Neville Longbottom, Harriet Potter (soon to be Harriet Longbottom) and Ron Weasley are concerned, it's over as far as they know as of the battle of Hogwarts where Neville cuts Voldemort down. It could actually be so, too. Lily's got serious _plans_ for lots of things for her husband to do, after all...

There are so many 'Harry or Severus travels back in time' fanfictions around that I thought I'd give a Voldemort one a go and post it, as a sort of counterpoint. Okay, it's somewhat silly, but I hope it has entertained at least some of my readers...


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